Wellington public transport plan adopted for consultation

A blueprint for world-class public
transport in Wellington was today given the green light for
public consultation.

The Draft Regional Public Transport
Plan outlines a range of major improvements to public
transport in the region over the next eight years. The
public will be asked for feedback on the draft plan from 4
April.

“Our aim is to get more people out of their cars
and onto buses, trains and harbour ferries. This will ease
congestion, improve productivity, reduce transport emissions
and make the Wellington region an even more attractive place
to visit, work and play in,” says Cr Paul Swain, the
Regional Council’s Public Transport Portfolio
Leader.

One of the major improvements is a bus rapid
transit spine through central Wellington. “High quality,
high frequency buses will run north to south and east to
west across the city. Through routing, where routes run
through the Golden Mile instead of beginning or ending at
Wellington Station at Courtenay Place, will mean fewer buses
and less congestion on the Golden Mile and therefore faster
trips. A new fares and ticketing system, where you use the
same card for all public transport, will mean quicker
boarding times.”

The central spine will be supported by
a new network of bus services throughout Wellington City,
giving more people more access to high frequency routes and
providing more weekend and evening services to more
suburbs.

“Just as the train fleet has been renewed, so
will the bus fleet. We’re exploring various options –
all of them low-emission – to transform bus travel in the
same way that the Matangi have created a new era for train
travel.”

Cr Swain says the Council’s new
performance-based contracts, to be negotiated within the
next three to four years, will specify the environmental
standards required for vehicles. “As a Regional Council we
have a mandate to protect the environmental health of the
region and our goal is to lower the emissions generally
across the fleet.

“The Wellington City bus fleet is of
mixed age and performance capability. We’re investigating
the costs and benefits of a range of fleet options over a
40-year period.

“Benefits include time savings and
emission reductions from changing the current bus fleet mix,
while costs include the costs of the vehicles, any
infrastructure costs and operating costs such as fuel or
electricity and maintenance.

“Given the trolley bus
overhead network and supply system needs tens of millions
dollars’ worth of work to bring it up to modern standards,
the fact that trolley buses are less flexible because they
can travel only where the wires are, the new Wellington City
bus network has been designed on the basis that the current
trolley bus network no longer operates after the expiry of
the current operating contract in 2017.”

During the
public consultation people will be asked a range of
questions, including how important fleet reliability is to
them, how important are carbon and other harmful emissions
and if they’re willing to pay more for a lower emission
option.

The quashing of the convictions of Teina Pora for the rape and murder of Susan Burdett in 1992 has shone a spotlight once again on a major gap in the New Zealand justice system.

To all intents and purposes, access by New Zealanders to the Privy Council has now been closed. Yet the number of times in recent years when the Privy Council has quashed the findings of New Zealand courts has demonstrated that we are regularly(a) jailing the wrong person or(b) arriving at guilty verdicts on grounds sufficiently flawed as to raise serious doubts that a miscarriage of justice has occurred. More>>

ALSO:

WorkSafe NZ has laid one charge against the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) in relation to the shooting at the MSD Ashburton office on 1 September 2014 in which two Work and Income staff were killed and another was injured. More>>

New Zealand First Leader Winston Peters has announced his intention to stand in the Northland by-election, citing his own links to the electorate and ongoing neglect of the region by central government. More>>